Structures
Heathen structures encompass all structures in the game e.g. all buildings; buildings provide static benefits to the owner and the population they support. Structures can be bought, built and placed on “foundations” with the exception of mission structures where they do not have a foundation requirement and cannot be explicitly placed. Foundations A foundation is a place in space where structures can be built/placed. Foundations include a base capacity and inherent population support value. All structures have a maintenance cost and staff requirement as well as resource costs for initial build and a capacity cost e.g. how much space they take up. A foundation's capacity is finite; however, efficiency improvements brought by command structures can improve capacity usage and structures can be upgraded by placing a structure of the same type over it. This has a minimal, if any, capacity cost and may even reduce capacity consumption. Foundation populations include the faceless masses identified in the system as “Heathen Residents” as well as Citizens. Note that citizens do contribute to the population in terms of capability and they do consume population support. However, as they are advanced space faring peoples, a negative population support value does not result in the loss of citizens while residents will migrate to and from foundations looking for a desirable (sufficiently supplied) place to live. That is to say, citizens won’t abandon their home due to resource limitations while residence will. Residence Residence are the general population as noted earlier and provide for taxes and have a tolerance and unrest value. The higher a resident tolerance, the less likely they will leave. The higher their unrest, the more likely they will revolt. Residence unrest and tolerance are directly impacted by the state of the leadership in their area, the availability of resources and the structures built. Structure Types Civil Structures These structures generally provide a population support bonus e.g. allow for larger populations and they apply a constant resource consumption. When they do not have sufficient resources the application of population support degrades and the result of over population is a negative impact to unrest. Command Structures These structures improve efficiency which globally affects consumptions including capacity use of buildings; command structures may also expand the capacity of a foundation in some cases. Command structures are variations of civil structures - as such they have a constant draw on resources. Resource Structures These structures have a resource output range for rare, uncommon and common resources. Like all structures, they have a staff requirements and maintenance cost but do not consume resources at all. Under staffing a resource structure does not adversely impact the population but does degrade its resource contribution. Research Structures Like resource, these structures are only aimed at unlocking technologies. A research structure can work on researching a number of technologies or technology unlocks determined by its type and staff. Having multiple research structures researching the same technology improves the rate at which that technology is learned. Mission Structures These are special structures that appear in missions conducted in the area the host foundation exists. While these are space bound structures, they do still consume staff and capacity but can also be equipped with weapons and other mission structures. Like ships, these structures have a shield, armor and structure rating e.g. they can be destroyed during missions. In most cases, however, some mission structures are marked critical and cannot be destroyed; this is only true for special cases such as story driven missions. Spawn Structures These are system only structures used during missions to provide a point of entry for MOB ships e.g. AI piloted cannon fodder. These are variations of mission structures.